1. Field of the Present System
The present system is directed to a graphical user interface allowing users to interface with a computer operating system and/or application programs running in conjunction with the operating system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer operating systems frequently employ a graphical user interface (“GUI”) to convey information to users over a display by various combinations of graphical items, such as icons, text, drop-down menus, dialog boxes, and toolbars. A GUI provides an interface to the operating system, and to application programs running in conjunction with the operating system. The goal of most user interfaces is to provide a rich user experience where the user can quickly and easily access a wide variety of operating system and/or application program functions.
A common example of a GUI is a drop-down menu, which organizes numerous computer operations into major headings and displays the headings across the top of a display screen. The headings each contain a menu that drops down when the heading is clicked to allow access to the operations listed in the drop-down menu. The operations may be tools, controls, commands, macros, procedures, etc. Another typical example of a GUI is a toolbar, which directly displays and allows access to operating systems and/or application program operations. Toolbars comprise a series of buttons arranged along a bar. Typically, a toolbar is disposed along the top of an application program window, although it may also be docked along another side or even may be free floating.
Drop-down menus and toolbars comprise a large portion of the GUI for known application programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel® and PowerPoint®. And within these application programs, many drop-down menu and toolbar features are directed to the formatting of documents. Traditionally, formatting functions control the way a document looks, for example the font, size and style of text in Word documents, the layout of spreadsheets in Excel, and the animation of slides in PowerPoint presentations. However, as the capabilities of these application programs have increased with each version, many more objects have been added to the formatting drop-down menu and toolbar. As a result, the formatting menu and toolbar in these application programs have become quite large. In some instances, the objects which have been added to the formatting menu and/or toolbar may not relate strictly to formatting, but have been placed there as a logical position for access by users.
While the expanded capability of the formatting options has made for a richer overall user experience, it may also happen that some formatting features become obscured in current formatting menus and toolbars. Moreover, as new formatting features are added to create even greater formatting functionality, users would benefit from a user interface which is easy to use and which provides quick access to a vast array of formatting options.